Most individuals have several telephony devices (also referred to herein as “telephones” or “telecommunications devices”) available to them to make and receive calls. Mobile telephones, such as cellular telephones, have become ubiquitous as users enjoy the convenience and portability they provide. However, mobiles phones typically offer lower audio quality and unreliable connections.
In the home or office environment, users still typically maintain their traditional home desktop landline or office landline telephone using the traditional public switched telephone network (PSTN). More recently, users have started to utilize Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) telephones. The VoIP telephone may be a personal computer (PC) executing a VoIP application such as Skype that provides telephone communications service over the Internet.
VoIP telephones are popular with users as they provide telephony services for free or at reduced costs, including calls to international destinations. Furthermore, when implemented on a PC in the office, they typically are plugged into an A/C power source, thereby providing unlimited talk time. Office PCs are also typically connected to an IP network using a wired landline connection. VoIP telephones typically offer high call quality than mobile calls operating on cellular networks.
In the prior art, once a call is begun on a mobile telephone, a user typically remains on the mobile phone even if a higher quality landline connection such as VoIP or the PSTN is available. For example, a calling party may dial the user's mobile phone in order to increase the likelihood of reaching the user. If the user is in his home or office when the call is received, he or she will answer the mobile call and continue the call on the mobile phone out of convenience, thereby sacrificing call quality.
Alternatively, if the user does wish to utilize a landline connection, the user must perform a cumbersome process to transition the call to a landline connection. The user must terminate the call on the mobile telephone and then either dial the other call participant using the VoIP or PSTN phone, or have the other call participant dial the user on his VoIP or PSTN phone. As a result, either the user or the other call participant must manually locate or dial the others landline phone number. Furthermore, there is a lengthy interruption in the conversation between the user and the call participant.
As a result, there is a need for improved methods and systems for enabling transitioning of calls between telephony devices.